The 1929 stock market crash was a stock market crash that began on October 24, 1929 and is one of the worst in US history. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 24.8%, marking the biggest one-day loss in Dow Jones history, according to Federal Reserve data.
The crash began on October 24, 1929, known as “Black Thursday,” when the market opened at 9: 00 am ET, according to the Federal Reserve. The three most important trading dates of the crash were October 23, October 25 and October 26, the day before the stock market crash. Losses on the day were contained as stocks picked up over the next two days, but institutions and financiers intervened with bids to curb panic in the market.
The upswing was short-lived, however, as the following Monday, Black Monday, the market closed down more than 2,000 points, or 7%, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). The Dow, which includes some of the largest companies in the US, fell 12% the next day, Black Tuesday. The day after Black Monday, on Tuesday, November 5, 1929, the first day of a two-day stock market crash, “Black Tuesday” hit Wall Street, where investors traded 16 million shares.
After Black Tuesday, America plunged along with the rest of the industrialized world into the longest economic downturn in its history. The US stock market had been expanding rapidly in the 1920s, peaking in the wild twenties with an average annual growth rate of more than 20%. But the aftermath of the crash, output had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stocks with a large surplus of their real value. It is 90 years since Black Thursday roused investors and set in motion the 1929 stock market crash. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 11% within hours, with bankers stepping in to back the move.
The Great Crash was underway on October 29, and investors began selling their shares at an alarming rate on what became known as Black Thursday. By November 17, $30 billion had disappeared from the US economy, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of the world’s largest stock markets, plunged 12.8%. The market was propped up for several more days before finally collapsing.
Traders were able to stabilize prices by the close of trading through excessive purchases, but the world stood still before the stock market and the US economy as a whole, as well as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, collapsed. “Black Tuesday,” as it is commonly known, marked the beginning of the Great Depression and the end of a tumultuous 25-year period of economic growth. The US stock market had been expanding rapidly in the 1920s, but by the summer of 1929 the economy was beginning to show signs of slowing.
In September, prices began to fall, and so the market began to adapt to economic reality. On Monday, the storm erupted again, sending markets into freefall – the first major stock market crash since the Great Depression. Over the weekend, many investors lost faith in stocks and decided to sell their shares – and lost confidence. Black Monday was followed by a complete slump in the stock market, with 16,410,030 shares trading for less than $1,000, down from a record high of $2,500 the previous day. Billions of dollars were lost, thousands of investors lost, and stock traders ran out of machinery that could not handle the huge volume of trading.
When the market reopened on Monday, October 28, 1929, the stock market had fallen by more than 22%. On the first day of trading on October 29, a record number of shares were traded, with a total of 16,410,030 shares traded for less than $1,000. The situation worsened on Tuesday when more than 16 million shares were traded, following a record high of 18,500 on Wednesday and a new all-time high on Thursday, November 1. The Wall Street crash was the collapse of the stock market in the US economy, paralyzed by the stock market crash, as individual investors put their money into stocks, as they did during the Great Depression. On October 29, 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, when the shares completely collapsed, between $10 and $15 billion was lost.
The 1920s were also known as the Roaring Twenties, when the United States experienced an economic boom. The booming economic prosperity and feverish consumption that characterized the “Golden 1920s” came to a halt on October 29, 1929, when the US stock market suffered its biggest ever plunge. As history always teaches us lessons it’s a continuous cycle when it comes to economy, it’s a phenomena that kept happening over and over again through the ages, when the economy is booming and thriving and you might think that this is as good as it gets and there’s no falling down it always crashes in the worst way possible and that’s just how economy and finances work.